It's Not About Your Stuff

Ask the organizer about unpacking from a move

Hey, check out my Ask the Organizer post over at 5minutesformom! This month's reader, Melinda, asked me about what was the best way to go about unpacking into a smaller space than she and her family were used to.

Here's a little quote:

The best advice I can offer anyone who is unpacking from a move is to be very very very strict with yourself about what to keep as it comes out of the boxes. As you unpack, you’ll have plenty of empty boxes, so why not designate one for donating, one for giving away to friends, family and new neighbors and one for trash. As each item comes out of the box, hold it in your hand and really ask yourself if it belongs in your fresh, new life. REALLY ask yourself. This is the time to stay completely present with your vision for what you are wanting to bring to your family and home. Remember, clutter is always about keeping what you want away.

If you find yourself in an internal battle over something you are holding, ask yourself what is the real ‘need’ you have to keep the item? Many times, there is an underlying emotion that is trapped inside the junk, and we forget that the thing is not the feeling or the memory you have projected into it, it’s just a thing.

Also, I have been to so many people’s homes who have told me that in the rush to get unpacked get resettled, they just stashed things in the first empty space, and there it lived for the next 15 years. I want to encourage you not to do this.

Here's the full post: Ask The Organizer.

Let's talk about Forgiveness

Welcome, visitors from NoLimitsLadies.com! Take a look around, make yourself at home...

I am not sure who took this concept into the public light, but I have a post-it on my desk that says, "The first step to becoming debt-free is to release all emotional debt through forgiveness".

photo courtesy of gravitasart.com

That sure makes me think. OK, what kind of resentment am I holding on to and to whom? Of course, the first thing that comes up is that I have not forgiven myself, but that's too easy (not that it's not true). The challenge continues to be that I am not sure what it is that I am still holding on to that is blocking my path, sabotaging me from truly having what I want.

Last week, I had an amazing session with a client that was revolutionary for both of us. I had her tell me a spot in nature that she wanted to visit and she took me to an actual lake in the middle of Los Angeles! As we sat by the lake, I asked her what she was really committed to. Of course, she began by telling me all the things she wanted in her life. I explained to her that no, those are your wishes, your visions. Your true commitments are the things that you have in your life right now. What are they? She teared up as I left her inhaling the essential oil called Release and one called Believe as she wrote out on paper what her commitments actually were right then. When I came back a few minutes later, I asked her if she wanted to renew these commitments she had been so devoted to maintaining. She emphatically said NO with a look of relief and understanding on her face. Then I asked her to choose a new commitment, one that was so pure and so clear inside her that if it were challenged, it would stimulate an instantaneous course-correction response. I used the painful example of a commitment that I knew she has: to keep her son safe. If anyone ever challenged that commitment, it would stimulate an immediate response from her. No one can come near her son in a harmful way, she is THAT clear, that certain, that committed to his safety. I explained that is how pure and clear she needed to be about everything she was committed to in her life. She got it. Really got it.

After we did this exercise for several areas: her marriage, her business, her Self, she was able to see how far away she had strayed from her vision of what she wanted. It brought up a lot of grief for her, grief for all the time she had wasted on the wrong commitments.

I believe that grief is a powerful and important step on the road to forgiveness, because, like any pain, long-suffered grief becomes an integral part of who we are, of the way we know ourselves to be. When we let go of that pain, there is a sense of loss, even though we are relieved to see it go. It's hard to live with the emptiness, but if we let it gently be, it diminishes quickly in the light of the joyful ability to see our way to forgiveness that arrives to fill the void.

Sound familiar?